The use of resin emulsion particles in pigmented inks is illustrated in copending application U.S. Ser. No. 08/869,962, the disclosure of which is wholly incorporated herein by reference, which discloses, for example, a resin emulsion comprised of from about 40 to 60 weight percent of benzyl methacrylate, from about 5 to about 20 weight percent of methacrylic acid, and from about 20 to about 40 percent by weight of polyethyleneglycol methacrylate, or more generally, a low molecular weight polyethylene glycol capped with a methacrylate or acrylate group.
The present invention is generally directed to ink compositions. More specifically, the present invention is directed to aqueous ink compositions particularly suitable for use in ink jet printing processes, and especially thermal ink jet processes, wherein the inks enable images with excellent smear resistant characteristics, and which inks contain unsaturated dye molecules incorporated into the resin emulsion particle by emulsion polymerization. Moreover, with the inks of the present invention the optical density of the developed images is excellent, paper curl is minimized and image smearing is minimal, or avoided. In embodiments, the present invention relates to imaging processes with ink jet inks comprised of water, colorant, especially dye, or pigment, and resin emulsion particles. Further, images developed with the inks of the present invention in embodiments enable ink jet prints of excellent resolution, acceptable and improved optical density, excellent waterfastness, minimum or very low showthrough, and excellent MFLEN.